The Beaver Theory E-Book

Antti Tuomainen

• Herausgeber: Orenda Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: The Rabbit Factor
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 397

Beschreibung

Can everyone`s favourite insurance mathematician, Henri, combine the increasingly dangerous world of adventure parks with the unpredictability of blended-family life? He's about to find out in the final instalment of the hilarious, nail-biting Rabbit Factor Trilogy. `A joyous, triumphant conclusion to Tuomainen`s trilogy … the comic thriller of the year´ Sunday Times THRILLER OF THE YEAR `Quirky crime capers don´t come more left field than the Rabbit trilogy … extremely funny, with a wicked line in social satire´ Daily Mail `One of those rare writers who manages to deftly balance intrigue, noir and a deliciously ironic sense of humour´ Vaseem Khan _______ Henri Koskinen, intrepid insurance mathematician and adventure-park entrepreneur, firmly believes in the power of common sense and order. That is until he moves in with painter Laura Helanto and her daughter… As Henri realises he has inadvertently become part of a group of local dads, a competing adventure park is seeking to expand their operations, not always sticking to the law in the process… Is it possible to combine the increasingly dangerous world of the adventure-park business with the unpredictability of life in a blended family? At first glance, the two appear to have only one thing in common: neither deals particularly well with a mounting body count. In order to solve this seemingly impossible conundrum, Henri is forced to step far beyond the mathematical precision of his comfort zone … and the stakes have never been higher… Warmly funny, quirky, touching, and a nail-biting triumph of a thriller, The Beaver Theory is the final instalment in the award-winning Rabbit Factor Trilogy, as Henri encounters the biggest challenge of his career, with hair-raising results… Soon to be a major motion picture starring Steve Carell ––––––––– Praise for the Rabbit Factor Trilogy: `Finland`s greatest export´ M.J. Arlidge `The funniest writer in Europe´ The Times `Thrilling and warmly human. In these uncertain times, what better hero than an actuary?´ Chris Brookmyre `Delightfully funny´ Guardian `Unlike anything else out there´ The Times `A thrilling and hilarious read´ Liz Nugent `Charming, funny and clever, this is a novel to cheer up anyone who is finding life a little tough´ Literary Review `A delight from start to finish´ Big Issue `Original and brilliant story-telling´ Helen FitzGerald `A coruscating comedy´ Sunday Times `You don`t expect to laugh when you`re reading about terrible crimes, but that`s what you`ll do when you pick up one of Tuomainen`s decidedly quirky thrillers´ New York Times `A refreshing change from the decidedly gloomier crime fiction for which Scandinavia is known´ Publishers Weekly `Right up there with the best´ Times Literary Supplement `A thriller with black comedy worth of Nabokov´ Telegraph

Leseprobe

PRAISE FOR ANTTI TUOMAINEN

WINNER of the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year

SHORTLISTED for the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award

SHORTLISTED for the CWA International Dagger

THE RABBIT FACTOR is currently in production for TV with Amazon Studios, starring Steve Carell

‘What a book! Antti has managed to put the fun into funerals and take it out of funfairs in a gripping nail-biter that was a thrilling and hilarious read. Thoroughly enjoyable’ Liz Nugent

‘Antti Tuomainen is a wonderful writer, whose characters, plots and atmosphere are masterfully drawn’ Yrsa Sigurðardóttir

‘An original and darkly funny thriller with a Coen brothersesque feel and tremendous style’ Eva Dolan

‘A joyous, feel-good antidote to troubled times’ Kevin Wignall

‘One of those rare writers who manages to deftly balance intrigue, noir and a deliciously ironic sense of humour … a delight’ Vaseem Khan

‘Finland’s greatest export’ M.J. Arlidge

‘Humorous, occasionally violent and always entertaining, the novel reaches a satisfactory conclusion while hinting at further high jinks in future’ A.A. Abbott

‘Laconic, thrilling and warmly human. In these uncertain times, what better hero than an actuary?’ Chris Brookmyre

‘Antti Tuomainen turns the clichéd idea of dour, humourless Scandi noir upside down … Dark, gripping and hilarious. Tuomainen is the Carl Hiaasen of the fjords’ Martyn Waites

‘Combines a startlingly clever opening, a neat line in dark humour and a unique Scandinavian sensibility. A fresh and witty read’ Chris Ewan

‘The funniest writer in Europe, and one of the very finest’ Helen FitzGerald

‘The biting cold of northern Finland is only matched by the cutting, dark wit and compelling plot’ Denzil Meyrick

‘Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I enjoyed every single sentence’ Thomas Enger

‘Readers might think they know what to expect from Nordic noir: a tortured detective, a bleak setting, a brutal crime that shakes a small community. Finnish crime novelist Tuomainen turns all of this on its head … The ear of a giant plastic rabbit becomes a key weapon. It only gets darker and funnier’ Guardian

‘The antic novels of Antti Tuomainen prove that comedy is not lost in translation … Tuomainen, like Carl Hiaasen before him, has the knack of combining slapstick with genuine emotion’ The Times

‘A thriller with black comedy worth of Nabokov’ Telegraph

‘Finnish crime maestro Antti Tuomainen is unique in the Scandi-crime genre, infusing his crime narratives with the darkest humour’ Financial Times

‘Right up there with the best’ Times Literary Supplement

‘Tuomainen continues to carve out his own niche in the chilly tundra of northern Europe’ Daily Express

‘A coruscating comedy’ Sunday Times

‘Charming, funny and clever, this is a novel to cheer up anyone who is finding life a little tough’ Literary Review

‘The comedy here is more overt, with plenty of slapstick and zany antics, but it’s Henri’s bemused attitude to it as he navigates all the weirdness that makes it a delight from start to finish’ Big Issue

‘You don’t expect to laugh when you’re reading about terrible crimes, but that’s what you’ll do when you pick up one of Tuomainen’s decidedly quirky thrillers’ New York Times

‘Full of refreshing wit and wisdom … a treat’ Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

‘A dark and delightful novel with an intelligent, brave, and pernickety hero’ Foreword Reviews

‘Dazzles the reader due to its wittiness and dark humour … necessary relief from some truly heinous acts such as the murder of a man with the ear of a giant plastic rabbit’ Tap The Line Magazine

‘Another absolute corker of a read’ Jen Med’s Book Reviews

‘I laughed and I was chilled by his dangerous and thrilling exploits … a fabulous series’ Live & Deadly

‘A delight from start to finish’ Raven Crime Reads

‘Tremendous fun: disorderly and uncontrollable … guaranteed enjoyment’ Café Thinking

‘The translation from David Hackston is wonderful, Tuomainen’s voice is heard throughout, with that wryness and dark humour that has become his trademark’ Random Things through My Letterbox

The Beaver Theory

ANTTI TUOMAINEN

Translated from the Finnish by David Hackston

To my father, Eero

With many fiscal greetings too

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGEDEDICATIONNOW SEVEN DAYS EARLIER 1 2 3 4 5 6 NOW 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 TWO MONTHS AND EIGHTEEN DAYS LATER ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSALSO BY ANTTI TUOMAINEN AND AVAILABLE FROM ORENDA BOOKSABOUT THE AUTHOR ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR  COPYRIGHT

NOW

By night, Somersault City smells very much the same as my own adventure park, YouMeFun: the plastic parts and metallic structures of the various attractions, the cleaning fluids and disinfectants, the residual aroma of the day’s offerings at the café. The air conditioning is humming; outside the icy north-east wind is a billow of snow, testing the durability of the tall metal walls. Otherwise, all is silent.

But I can’t claim to feel entirely at ease.

I am an actuary, not a burglar.

I’m only on my competitor’s premises to … gather information that I’ve been unable to obtain in any other way. But isn’t that too a form of theft? Is this how burglars defend their actions to themselves? That they are merely scouting out other people’s interiors and only taking the things they have otherwise been unable to get their hands on?

I take a deep breath. The time for such considerations is later. I remind myself that, in their short but all the more consequential career in the adventure-park business, the owners of Somersault City have threatened violence against me personally and made perfectly clear – this too, in person – their intention to drive my adventure park into bankruptcy, and the sooner the better.

Light seeps into the space here and there: from the windows by the ceiling a shimmer of the outside lights; the faint green glow of the emergency-exit signs; the Somersault City logo, lit up at the western end of the hall like a large, dim sun. As the seconds pass, my vision becomes clearer. The contours of the rides seem to sharpen, the space in front of me assumes depth and form, the different parts of the hall stand out from one another.

From my previous visit, I remember the topography of the hall with relative accuracy. And I’m only too aware of the lifetime ban I received on that occasion.

Meanwhile, I recognise the Dumbo Dodgems, the Kangaroo Course, the dizzyingly tall Eiffel Bungee and all the other rides, and again I wonder how on earth Somersault City is able to provide all this completely free of charge. In light of the known facts, their aim is either a precipitous descent into administration or they have financial backing from people for whom money is no object. Neither of these options seems especially plausible.

Naturally, I am something of an amateur when it comes to breaking and entering, but I note that at least I managed to select suitable footwear for the occasion. Not only are the cheap slippers I bought from a German supermarket chain colourful; they are soft too and have thick soles. My steps are silent. My first destination is the eastern end of the park, the administrative wing situated behind a climbing wall known as the Baboon Barrier. Of course, I don’t expect to find a report on the CEO’s desk neatly explaining how Somersault City plans to achieve the impossible: to run a profit while behaving in a way that is doomed to financial ruin. Nonetheless, I expect to be wiser by the end of my reconnaissance trip than I was when I arrived.

The baboons are quiet as I pass them. This is partly due to their plastic constituency, but the primary reason is that the electricity bringing them to life is switched off at night: there’s no point in the baboons scaling the barriers without any little competitors to keep them company.

A short flight of stairs leads up to the administration department. The doorway at the top of the stairs is open; there is no door or anything else to impede my view. I arrive in some kind of foyer. On the opposite wall there is a row of windows that allow me to see into what appears to be a conference room. I walk into the room and look around.

A long, greyish-white office table stands diagonally across the room; dark-blue plastic chairs have been left at a distance from the table. The only other item in the room is a flip chart. I walk towards it and flick back through its pages.

One page has clearly been dedicated to a straw poll of lunch options. Thai food received four votes, burgers narrowly lost with only three. I continue flicking through the pages until I reach the first blank page. I think for a moment, then turn back a page. All of a sudden, the page feels somehow crucial.

At the top, someone has written the year that has just started. Beneath that is a list of months. After January is the number 100. After February is the number 0. And after all the subsequent months, the numbers are negative:

March -100

April -200

May -300

And so on, exponentially, until we reach December (-1M).

Whatever these numbers are trying to express, their author has certainly opted for clarity and consistency of presentation.

I return to the foyer.

The right-hand wall is shorter and bears only a poster with a view of the national park – which feels rather curious given the park’s employees, whom I have met and who do not strike me as the hiking type – but on the left-hand side there are two doors.

The first door isn’t locked and opens the way most doors do: by simply turning the handle. The room beyond this door is more of a storeroom than an office, containing everything from a flat-screen television – still in its original cardboard packaging – to packets of oat biscuits destined for wholesale.

I look around for a moment and conclude that, given this space and the conference room, the people who tried to assault me and who have threatened the very existence of my adventure park are decidedly mundane in everything else they do. The next and last office space, however, appears to be the nerve centre of the entire park.

There are papers on the desk, but there are tools too. On top of one pile of papers is a set of pliers stained with chain oil, on another pile is a dirty workman’s glove. I cannot immediately see its pair anywhere. What’s more, I cannot see, at least not at first glance, the reports that were mentioned during my visit, reports whose figures I would be very interested to peruse. I walk round behind the desk and am about to begin a more detailed inspection when I flinch and realise two things at once.

My heart is beating so hard that I can’t hear anything.

In addition, I’ve been using a small torch in the room, though the blinds are still slightly ajar. I switch off the torch there and then and try to breathe calmly, but the humming and drumming inside me only seems to be getting worse. As I realised earlier: industrial heists are not my forte. Eventually, my heart steadies itself a little, the booming dies down. As I try to establish the reason for this sudden anxiety, I move towards the door.

This is clearly the right direction, because I hear a thud coming from somewhere in the hall and realise I heard a similar sound earlier too. I wait. For the time being, there are no more thuds. I proceed silently through the foyer and remain waiting on one side of the doorway. I wait in silence for a long while. Finally, I peer round the doorway into the adventure park, allowing my eyes to pan from left to right.

The Eiffel Bungee, the boxing kangaroos standing almost as tall, the hefty Dumbo Dodgems and…

The Beaver.

The eighteen-metre Beaver and its countless activities, including a DIY foam dam, a tail with a bouncy castle, and a network of slides, is the number-one attraction at Somersault City. The enormous Beaver is lying on its stomach right in the middle of the park; from this angle the gargantuan rodent is partially hidden behind the bungee tower and the elephants. I can see the Beaver’s mouth though. Its large, white front teeth gleam even in the dim. But that isn’t what catches my attention.

Lying on the ground, beneath the beaver’s teeth, there is … something.

I can neither see nor hear movement anywhere. The Beaver’s mouth is too far away to make out what it is about to eat. Of course, the steel-framed Beaver hasn’t been left any literal supper, but this certainly looks real enough. Just as I’m about to take my eyes from the Beaver, I see movement at floor level. At first it seems as though something is trying to extricate itself from an otherwise dark and homogenous mass, then I realise what is really happening.

A hand slumps from a chest. On the floor beside the hand – and this, too, I see only now – is a Stetson.

My heart starts to thump again, there’s a rushing sound in my ears, like standing beside a busy motorway. The calculation is simple – there are a very limited number of variables in the equation: someone is obviously injured and needs help, and it doesn’t really matter whether I am here as an actuary or in some other capacity. (I’m still unsure whether this visit meets the specific criteria for burglary.) And because there is nobody else in sight, I must help this injured person. The result after the equals sign is clear.

I start moving.

I have to walk in a long curve to reach the Beaver because my route takes me past many of the park’s other sizeable attractions. As before, my footsteps are silent. Finally, I walk around one of the Eiffel Bungee’s legs and almost end up in the Beaver’s jaws myself, but I stop before its teeth can reach me – and I might even take a step back too.

The cowboy costume is a familiar one: the boots, the jeans, the patterned Rodeo shirt and bolo tie with shiny eagles dangling at the ends. I know this man; I even know his name. He owns the park. I’ve met him, I told him what I thought about his business model, and I strongly advised a different approach. Above all: I told him – with witnesses present – that I have no intention of backing down, that I plan to respond to their aggression in my own way and that I will do whatever it takes to protect my own park.

But now he’s not moving, nothing about him is moving. His eyes are open, his mouth is open. More to the point, his mouth is full. Protruding from between his jaws is a plastic ice-cream cone, approximately half a metre in length. The pointed, and presumably steel, end of the cone is wedged deep in his throat. I can’t help thinking this looks a lot like an ice-cream advert gone badly wrong. I am about to take a step either forwards or backwards – I’m not sure I’m even able to decide which direction is best – when my heart implodes once and for all.

‘Murderer!’

The cry comes from the main entrance. Just then, I hear someone running.

A lot can happen in a few fractions of a second. I look at the man lying on the ground, I look at the man running towards me, I make out the familiar blue face and realise quite how unfavourable the situation looks from my perspective. I turn and am preparing to start running when I hear another set of footsteps, this time coming from the opposite direction.

‘Police! Stop!’

I finish turning, then – finally – I too start running. I hurry towards the back door, my original point of entry. I have just enough time to think of two things: my balaclava and the delivery ramp propped against the wall outside the door. The balaclava was a precaution against any security cameras. Now, at a modest estimate, it will be of immeasurable help.

As for the delivery ramp…

‘Get him!’ I hear behind me, and I’m almost certain I recognise the voice. ‘That’s our killer!’

I reach the door, push it open, press it shut behind me. In a continuation of the same movement, I grab the metal ramp from where I left it beside the wall, prop one end at the base of the railings around the loading bay and wedge the other end against the door. This I do at the last possible moment, as right that minute someone slams into the door from the other side. Fists pound on the door. I can still hear the shouting, only fainter, and now I can’t make out any of the words. But there’s no need. The situation is absolutely unambiguous and the joins between the dots are mercilessly and uncompromisingly direct: if they catch me or recognise me, then I’m no longer just a burglar.

I’m a murderer.

SEVEN DAYS EARLIER

1

That chilly January day, the low, white sun shone straight into my face as I walked across the empty living room and stepped out onto the balcony. At once, the cold took me in its embrace. The pure snow glistered and sparkled; the trees wore their coats of snow in silence. Somewhere out of sight, a snow plough clattered into the distance. I took a deep breath, allowed my eyes to take in the familiar view. These houses, all designed with precise geometrical symmetry, enjoyed effective heating, functional layouts and a price that was unbeatable, given their size, and it had always been thus. And until now, I had enjoyed these things too.

It was my last day in Kannelmäki.

I noticed a faint tremor in my hands, and at first I tried to tell myself this must be the result of all the packing and carrying boxes here and there, the dozens of journeys up and down the stairwell, the endless positioning, the placing and fitting I’d been doing. But, as I quickly admitted to myself, this wasn’t the whole truth.

Around nine months ago, I’d been forced to leave my job at the risk-management department of an insurance company. I was an actuary, a job and profession with which I still strongly identified, and I’d been forced into a situation in which I had to choose between a many-pronged humiliation and a demotion, or voluntarily leaving the company’s employ. I handed in my notice. Shortly thereafter, I inherited an adventure park from my brother, who, at that precise moment, happened to be dead. At the same time, I inherited his debts too, debts that he had taken out with some decidedly hardboiled crooks. One thing led logically and inexorably to the next: a body in the fridge at the park’s café, falling in love with art and the artist herself, defending the adventure park from unscrupulous investors and a cavalcade of criminals, and this in turn led to more bodies and, naturally, to my brother’s resurrection from the dead and everything that ensued as a result. And finally to the fact that I was about to become a member of a family again, for the first time since the chaos that was my own childhood and adolescence.

Everything had happened very quickly. (I know lots of people say this after making a grave error – investing their life savings in an electric-car company at a grossly inflated share price, for instance, or taking a drunken decision to try slaloming along the motorway – and usually at the point when they wish such things as time machines existed.) Thankfully, I had already become used to the fact that, compared with the past, many things in my life were moving at the speed of a meteorite and that, more often than not, I had to take decisions once the train had already left the station.

Laura Helanto was my train, my meteorite.

We’d first met at the adventure park. Laura had worked as park manager from the time she had been released from prison, where she had ended up after becoming embroiled in her former boyfriend’s many and varied financial improprieties. It quickly transpired that the park was just her way of supporting herself and her daughter, but that her real calling was as an artist. What’s more, her art had a profound effect on me – a sensation that bore no comparison to anything I had ever experienced in the past and that was impossible for me to square with any known mathematical principles. It soon became apparent that Laura Helanto herself had an effect on me, one stronger still than her art. And now, evidence suggested that she had similar thoughts and feelings towards me too.

And yet…

I took another deep breath, the crisp winter air felt sharp in my throat, refreshing in my lungs. But even this didn’t fully dispel the tremors, nor what was causing them. I concluded that, compared to how I might previously have acted, my behaviour was decidedly reckless. I certainly hadn’t been following in the footsteps of Pascal and Euclid, as I had once resolved to do. How often had Schopenhauer and I wondered at people’s foolhardy whims and general rashness; their actions and decisions, made without careful advance planning or even profitability and probability calculations, checked many times over? Yet what was I doing right now?

January reminded me of its presence. The sun was dazzling, but a chill ran through everything, first the clothes, then the skin, before settling somewhere deeper, right around the largest bones. I cast my eyes once more over everything to which I was about to bid farewell. Then I turned, went back indoors, walked through the empty, echoing apartment to the front door, carefully pressed it closed, descended via the stairs and climbed on board the removal van waiting by the front door.

The driver was a strapping young man with big hands, the kind of youngster who wore a T-shirt in the middle of winter and who took great care of his immaculate coif, even amid all the lifting and lugging; I’d twice seen him checking and adjusting his hair in the bathroom mirror after bounding up the stairs. I’d already given my destination when I booked the removal company, and now, while we were waiting for the traffic lights to change, for some reason the driver brought up the subject again.

‘Nice neck of the woods, Herttoniemi,’ he said, and glanced at me.

This woke me from my thoughts. Perhaps a little small talk, the kind I did my best to avoid, might cheer me up and lighten the mood.

‘I like it too,’ I said. ‘Public-transport connectivity is excellent, the buildings are cost-effective and of high quality, their layout is clear and almost perfectly functional, and property prices in the area are expected to retain or even increase their value over the medium to long term.’ I held a brief pause, looked the driver in the eye, and added: ‘Assuming, that is, that there are no significant changes in the underlying macroeconomic situation.’

The driver was silent. Then, apparently with considerable effort, he managed to turn away from me and look straight ahead.

‘We’ll be there in a minute,’ he said. ‘How about I start with the boxes of books?’

We took the slip road from the dual carriageway up to a large roundabout, went almost all the way around it before taking the last exit and heading into what people called the old part of the suburb of Herttoniemi. We took an immediate left, passed a supermarket and a car park, then began climbing a hill curving round to the right. We travelled in silence after our brief attempt at small talk – either we had both got everything off our minds, or the subject of the pros and cons of life in Herttoniemi had been exhausted, and the driver didn’t seem to need advice on how to find the right building.

We drove to the top of the hill, almost to the end of the road, took a short turn to the left, then continued up the steep driveway in front of the house. Geographically we were at the highest point in the suburb, which meant that we had arrived.

The driver switched off the engine.

I opened the door, stepped out onto the snow-covered driveway, and at that moment all my doubts about the rationale behind what I was doing quite simply vanished.

This wasn’t just because I glanced up and saw the windows on the third floor glowing warm and cosy against the darkening evening sky. And neither was it because of how I had successfully consolidated the financing arrangement for Laura Helanto’s recent pipe refit and her remaining mortgage repayments into a single loan, repayable over a longer period of time and with a fixed interest rate, thus making sure that, even with her monthly fee to the housing association, her outgoings would be reasonable long into the future.

No.

It was because of what happened next.

Laura Helanto appeared from the stairwell, propped the door open and began walking towards me. The closer she came, the more clearly I understood that I wasn’t simply changing apartment. In fact, I wasn’t even moving my belongings. (Though a moment later I was carrying them up the concrete stairwell to the third floor, careful not to bash things against the metal railings, which caused a low-pitched boom to echo up and down the corridor.) I was switching my life for a better one.

I was moving out of my old life and into a new one.

I looked at Laura Helanto and experienced the same joy that I always felt upon seeing her. I liked her appearance, her wild bushy hair, her bright, curious eyes framed by her dark spectacles, her broad, ever so slightly asymmetrical lips and distinctly angular jaw, and even more than that I liked her practical attitude. She often seemed to be a few steps ahead of me, as though she had read my thoughts or somehow knew in advance what I would do in a given situation, what I would think about a given matter. Right now, I couldn’t say whether she had noticed this comprehensive shift in my thinking, but at least she knew what to say.

‘Welcome home, Henri.’

We carried boxes for the next hour and a half. The driver did excellent work. I must admit, I was taken aback when I heard a short snippet of conversation between him and Laura Helanto. It seemed he did want to carry on talking about Herttoniemi after all; I heard him comment on the subject using almost the exact words he had said to me earlier. He and Laura then exchanged thoughts on the area, drawing on arguments that were largely emotional and therefore wholly incommensurable, and both seemed pleased with their conclusion. Straight after this conversation, the driver walked past me but refrained from broadening the scope of the discussion or continuing to debate the matter with me further. On the contrary: he quickly closed the door behind him and, judging by the speed of the footsteps echoing through the stairwell, almost fled the scene.

Carrying the print of Gauss’s equations, I walked into the living room, where Laura was already unpacking my books and placing them on our shared shelf. Just then, Laura’s daughter, Tuuli, and my cat, Schopenhauer, came out of her room to join us. In this respect too, I had been worried over nothing. Tuuli and Schopenhauer seemed to be getting on very well, and their age difference didn’t appear to affect their interaction in the least: Schopenhauer was friendly and approving towards his new comrade, though this one talked more and moved more quickly than any other human being he had ever encountered.

That night, while I was lying in bed as Laura slept soundly by my side, her head resting on my shoulder, images flickered through my mind – not all of them pleasant: being pursued and chased on more than one occasion; sinking the body of a gangster who had tried to kill me into a murky pond; the constant suspicions directed at me by Detective Inspector Pentti Osmala of the Joint Division of the Helsinki Organised-Crime and Fraud Units; my brother’s escapades, first dying then trying to take over the adventure park before one final disappearing act; and countless other events from the last few months, situations which I had survived only with the combined help of mathematics and a factor it was far more difficult to pin down. I believe the word ‘love’ is often used in such circumstances.

I listened to the winter winds whipping through the flues and to Laura’s deep, peaceful breathing. My right arm was starting to grow numb, but I didn’t feel the urge to move it. In fact, I didn’t feel the urge to do anything, to go anywhere. I wanted to be right here. And at this, the unpleasant images began to fade, replaced now with more pleasant ones, from our first so-called date – a field of expertise and a use of time that until that evening I had considered very high risk and unprofitable over the long term – to the moment when we started unpacking my boxes this afternoon and began putting together our shared home. Eventually, these pleasant images began to fade too, and all I could feel was Laura Helanto’s warmth.

My last thought before falling asleep was that I had come home. I had finally found my way to a safe place, both literally and figuratively. (As an actuary, I knew only too well, even as I began to slip into sleep, that there was only one thing in life we could predict with absolute certainty and that this factor was firmly linked to a well-planned life-insurance policy.)

The thought was every bit as warm, as real, as vital as Laura Helanto sleeping beside me.

I was safe.

And nothing could threaten me now.

2

‘The parents’ evening starts at six,’ said Laura Helanto. ‘If you get there fifteen minutes early, that’ll be plenty of time. I would go myself, but I’ve got the interview across town, then I’m going to look at that workspace I told you about. If I get this job, it means I’ll be sorted for the next six months.’

For the second time I told Laura that the matter was settled, we had formed a family unit and that meant from now on we shared things with a view to our mutual success. I told her she didn’t have to worry about it in the least; the meeting wouldn’t be the slightest problem. I very nearly reminded her that I had survived far trickier situations than this, but swiftly changed my mind and took the more sensible option. That was all behind me now, it was in the past. I had no intention of bringing park business into the home, not even tangentially.

Across the table, Laura was drinking her second cup of coffee, clinking the spoon against the sides of her large yellow mug as she stirred. Outside it was still dark. Tuuli had left for school a moment ago, and I was about to make my way to the adventure park. It was Monday, which meant we had the weekly staff meeting first thing, and I wanted to make sure I had all the necessary materials ready, which, in turn, meant I had to get to the adventure park in good time before the start of the meeting.

I stood up from the table and began gathering up the dishes.

Loading the dishwasher was a very satisfying, practical application of mathematical principles; it was about optimising space, exploiting the maximal flow of water, positioning dishes to make sure they were as evenly spaced as possible. One wrongly stacked bowl, pot or even a plain old plate might have a crucial impact on the overall cleaning process, its success or failure. I didn’t explain the matter in quite this much detail when I told Laura that, from now on, I would take care of this household chore. Even without hearing my rationale, this seemed to suit her very well.

‘How are you feeling otherwise?’ I heard her ask.

I glanced at her as she sat beneath the dome light hanging above the table. Far behind her, the Arabianranta district had woken up too, the strip of light along the opposite shore ran the full length of the window. Laura was wearing grey tracksuit bottoms and a large light-blue hoodie. On her feet she had a pair of pink woollen socks. I was wearing dark pressed trousers, an ironed white shirt and a blue-and-grey striped tie.

‘About what?’ I asked as I arranged the drinking glasses in a tight but amply spacious row in the dishwasher.

Laura looked at me, smiled. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed,’ she said. ‘You’ve moved.’

‘Quite,’ I replied, placing the knives and forks so that they faced away from one another. ‘I think this is a very mutually beneficial solution.’

‘Nice to hear.’

Having spent a lot of time in Laura Helanto’s company, I’d come to realise that in situations like this, one is expected to answer with similar questions. Until now, I’d never understood why this was necessary; I didn’t know what to do with information about what distant acquaintances or perfect strangers had been up to recently, let alone how they were ‘doing’. But I’d noticed that I was actually very interested in Laura Helanto’s feelings and opinions, and so I asked:

‘What about you? How are you feeling?’

She swallowed her coffee, and it sounded to me as though she did this a little more quickly than usual.

‘I think this is quite … mutually beneficial too,’ she said, then chuckled; I didn’t know why. She was still looking at me. I would much rather have concentrated on the lively twinkle in her eyes, but I was busy concentrating on making crucial decisions about the optimal positioning of several plastic containers, and I was certain I could hear the second hand on the wall clock edging me towards the front door.

‘I know we’ve talked about this before but…’ she began. ‘After all that’s happened … I just hope that from now on everything will be … safer … safe.’

I believed I understood what she meant.

‘The adventure park has overcome a number of difficulties,’ I said. ‘Everybody is working with renewed enthusiasm. Our customer numbers have remained constant, and our finances too. Soon we’ll be in a position to think about more investments. Then there’s the three of us. You, me and Tuuli. Our living expenses are relatively low, and our other outgoings too. Our finances are based on a sensible, long-term advance plan and predicated on sticking to that plan. As an actuary, I can’t promise anything with one-hundred-percent accuracy – except the obvious, that is – but I will say that our financial margin is considerable and growing.’

Laura was silent for a moment. Then she smiled.

‘Thank you, Henri,’ she said and handed me her coffee mug, which I took from her hand and put in the place I had reserved for it in the dishwasher. Then I switched on the machine, and after a few brief displays of affection I was on my way to the adventure park.

My route was new now. First I took the metro to Itäkeskus, where I had to change and get a bus. And eventually, I did just that, but only after missing the bus I had been planning to catch, which would have got me to the park in good time. I wasn’t in the habit of being late. Nonetheless, I decided to enjoy my new surroundings and the slowly brightening winter’s morning as best I could. I reminded myself that I was unfamiliar with this route and that, these days, I seemed to be learning a great many new things.

When I finally got off the bus, I walked briskly, which wasn’t only to do with being in a hurry, the -10oC temperature or the north-westerly wind. I had taken the weekend off, and I wasn’t in the habit of doing that either. I usually worked at the park one day over the weekend, but now I’d been off since Friday afternoon. Key to this decision was moving house, but so was an observation I’d made about three weeks earlier. My employees had all grown into their respective roles, and nowadays they took greater responsibility for shared matters too. One afternoon three weeks ago, I realised that the day-to-day running of the park didn’t require my constant oversight. Everything worked just as it should, things were taken care of, the employees did their work so well and so efficiently that I’d even considered giving them a pay rise and had reached the conclusion that this would happen as soon as our financial situation allowed it.

I crossed the road and continued across the snow-covered car park. As I arrived at the main doors, I turned and looked back. It was a curious thing to do, and at first I couldn’t think why I’d spun around. I concluded it must have been from force of habit, a hangover from the time when I really did have to keep looking over my shoulder – for good reason. I looked at the car park a moment longer, judged it to be about as empty as on any median Monday, put my key in the door and stepped inside.

The aroma of fresh coffee and cinnamon buns hung in the air as I passed the Komodo Locomotive, the Strawberry Maze, the Doughnut and all the other familiar activities and contraptions. Our newest and largest acquisition, the Moose Chute, stood in pride of place in the middle of the park, its antlers reaching up to diving-platform heights and its dark flanks gleaming like a small ship. Whether I was looking at the machines, the floor, the walls, or anything at all, everything I saw was clean, in places almost sparkling. I mentally thanked Kristian, whose responsibilities now included organising and overseeing the park’s cleaning operation. The hall even smelt clean, which also explained why the aromas coming from the Curly Cake Café were so overwhelming.

There were still a few minutes until the start of our morning meeting. I reached my office, switched on my computer, pulled up the documents and reports I needed and sent them to the printer. I glanced out of my second-floor window, adjusted my tie, grabbed the papers and walked into the conference room.

This was a new room, and it had come about at Kristian’s initiative. Among his many suggestions for how to improve and modernise the park, this one had stood out in that it was genuinely feasible. He had even put up the walls himself, separating the room from the rest of the storeroom. Our marketing manager, Minttu K, had taken care of the interior design, which mostly consisted of shiny white surfaces and black leather. In addition, two black bollards had been positioned in the corners of the room. Minttu K called them sculptures. I’d seen similar rooms in a futuristic horror film I’d ended up watching years ago after a series of misunderstandings regarding the technicalities of buying a ticket.

Everybody was already sitting at the long white table: Kristian and Minttu K, and alongside them Esa, the park’s head of security, playtime coordinator Samppa, and Johanna, who ran the kitchen at the Curly Cake Café. I walked to the head of the table, pulled out a chair and sat down. It was only then that I noticed that everybody in the room was looking at me. Their eyes then turned to the papers I’d placed on the table in front of me, then back to me again. The silence was new too. If this was a hint, I took it.

I lowered my eyes, examined the pile of papers in front of me. Then I remembered I had simply clicked open the report, printed it off, taken it with me and placed it on the white table – without so much as looking at it.

The uppermost paper was a report detailing ticket sales, customer numbers and the total takings. I had barely reached the end of the report when all the other observations I’d made that morning – the pristine snow covering most of the car park; the overall cleanliness that intensified the smells emanating from the café – little things I had noticed without knowing why, suddenly formed a clear picture.

Or rather, the picture they formed was distinctly unclear.

‘What has happened?’ I asked.

I looked at each of them in turn. Esa was staring straight ahead as though he was on guard duty, a black folder with a sticker bearing the insignia of the US Marines in front of him on the table. Samppa was adjusting his ponytail with sudden urgency, and once his hair was in a position of his liking, he turned his attention to his bracelets, the number and colour of which seemed to have increased since I’d last seen him. Johanna looked me right in the eyes, but I’d always found it impossible to read her: I suspected her lengthy spell in prison had helped her hone that stare into its current unflinching form. Sitting closest to me was Minttu K, but I could only see a small part of her face. Most of it remained hidden behind the giant coffee mug she was holding to her lips. As there were no windows in the room, I imagined the bouquet of window-cleaning fluid must be coming from the contents of her enormous mug.

‘Footfall has suddenly … collapsed,’ I said and re-examined the figures on the page in front of me. ‘Ticket sales only fifteen percent of what we would take on a normal weekend. Café sales only a tenth of what they usually are. Has something happened here?’

‘Not here,’ said Esa.

‘Not here,’ Kristian confirmed.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Has something happened somewhere else?’

‘Somersault City,’ said Esa.

Somersault City was our new competitor, an enterprise about which I knew very little. My brother Juhani had defected and gone to work for them, but three weeks had been enough for him. Then he’d disappeared again. I only knew two things about Somersault City: the International Association of Adventure Parks had declined their membership but never formally explained why. In addition, I knew where Somersault City was located. The shining new building was almost diametrically at the opposite end of the city from YouMeFun.

‘What have they done?’ I asked.

‘It all started on Friday with a massive radio campaign: free entrance and free hotdogs – normal, vegetarian, vegan,’ said Minttu K. In the mornings, her voice resembled the growling of a laryngitic lion and her breath smelt of menthol cigarettes, even when she wasn’t smoking them. ‘Then at the weekend they brought in the celebs: on Saturday they had Aku Hirviniemi – four performances, all his funniest sketches. A six-figure fee and free hotdogs for the customers. Normal, vegetarian, vegan. And all this with free entry. On Sunday they had Anna Abreu – but that was adults only. She didn’t sing. The dads bring kids to the park, then they get to take Anna on the rides: one ride per dad, per kid. Some of them were going around Espoo and beyond, looking for kids to take with them. One guy even packed his car with kids from the swing park and drove them all to Somersault City. Free entry. Free hotdogs. Normal, vegetarian, vegan.’

Minttu K took a thirsty gulp from her mug; this lengthy answer had clearly dried her mouth and throat.

‘This all sounds like a temporary—’

‘There aren’t enough sausages left for us,’ Johanna interrupted me. ‘Somersault City has bought them all up. Their plan is to cook and sell over half the sausages sold in Finland this week.’

‘But if it’s only going to last a week—’

‘Besides this unprovoked infraction, they have a long-term, more expansionist policy,’ said Esa. ‘Our intel confirms this. I’ve already conducted reconnaissance on the neighbouring plot. Would they be behaving like this if they didn’t believe in their superior man power and endurance?’

‘I’m not sure this is quite—’ I said before yet another interruption.

‘And they have already informed us,’ said Minttu K, ‘that the free entry is set to continue.’

‘The park’s about to open; I should go and open the doors,’ said Kristian, and stood up; with his rippling muscles he looked as though he was heading in two directions at once. ‘I’ll make sure the first customers have tickets, then I’ll be back. I’ve got some ideas.’

I glanced at my phone. Kristian was right about the time. I didn’t know where the minutes had gone. I cast my eyes over the sales reports once more, the customer numbers, the various charts and figures. They posed numerous questions, that was certain, and not only for YouMeFun.

‘Nobody can offer free entry and free hot dogs indefinitely…’

Minttu K shook her head. ‘Not indefinitely, honey. Just long enough for us to close our doors. Once they’re the only adventure park in town, they can charge whatever they like.’

Minttu K might have worded this thought rather differently from how I would have put it, but she was, of course, absolutely right. Silence descended upon the room for a second time that morning.

‘Our defensive and offensive strategies in a nutshell,’ said Esa, pointedly pushing his black folder towards me across the table. ‘Land, sea and air. All readings taken this morning at oh-six hundred.’

I didn’t know what was in the dossier in Esa’s black folder, but neither did I feel a great desire to open it and find out.

‘Thank you, Esa,’ I said. ‘Before we start—’

‘Denying our true feelings,’ said Samppa. ‘That’s mistake number one.’

‘I don’t see how—’

‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Samppa continued. ‘Instead of suppressing our emotions, what we need now is a safe space where we can all share the feelings that this threatening situation is causing.’

‘We should consider a militarisation sooner rather than later,’ said Esa.

‘There are no sausages,’ said Johanna. ‘I’m down to my last meatballs and fish fingers too, for the same reason.’

‘Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue,’ Samppa said, his emphasis growing with each repetition. ‘What am I feeling, what are you feeling? And, once we’ve established that, what are we feeling?’

‘I’m afraid it’s too late for a pre-emptive strike,’ said Esa. ‘Stealth bombs and such.’

‘Coffee might be next on the list,’ said Johanna. ‘And if the mums and dads can’t get their coffee … there’ll be no way back.’

Samppa shook his head. ‘We really need to let go of all this shame…’

I’d already raised my hand, and I was about to interrupt the increasingly agitated conversation, first to express my concern and second to stress that we should keep an eye on the situation and consider how likely it was that things would continue like this or whether our customer numbers would start to increase again in the next few days, but I didn’t have the chance. Kristian returned to the conference room. He was out of breath. His tight white T-shirt looked suddenly very tight indeed. The same might be said of his expression.

‘Nobody,’ he gasped as he shook his head, as though he could hardly believe his own words. ‘Not a soul.’

He paused for a moment, and it seemed that the last glimmer of hope flickered inside him, then snuffed itself out.

‘I haven’t got any ideas after all,’ he said.